Palestinians Reject More Peace Talks With Israel

The Palestinians ruled out any more talks about a resumption of Middle East peace negotiations Wednesday after a fifth meeting in Jordan produced "not one step" from Israel, a Palestinian official said.

"Today's meeting was the last and there will be no further exploratory talks with the Israeli side," a senior Palestinian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We can say that all these meetings have gone nowhere because Israel has moved not one step to enable a resumption of negotiations," the official said after the meeting held under tight secrecy in Jordan.

The Jordanian hosts said the talks had been "frank and serious, despite the differences of position.

"The coming days will be dedicated to assessing the results in consultation with the concerned parties," Jordan's official Petra news agency quoted Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh as saying.

Diplomatic efforts by the so-called Quartet -- made up of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- to jump start the peace negotiations have intensified in recent days.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is expected to meet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday and the United Nations announced that secretary-general Ban Ki-moon would head to the Middle East next week.

Ahead of the Jordan talks, Abbas rephrased the Palestinians' longstanding conditions for new talks.

"If we determine the borders, it is possible to return to negotiations, but the Israelis don't want to determine the borders," Abbas said in comments published by the Palestinians' official Wafa news agency.

Until now, the Palestinians have said they will agree to return to the negotiating table only if Israel agrees to freeze settlement construction and if it accepts the lines that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War as the basis for discussions on future borders.

There was no immediate Israeli response to Abbas' remarks, which were made just hours before Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Shtayeh met Israel's Yitzhak Molcho in Jordan.

The two negotiating teams had held four face-to-face meetings since Jan. 3 to explore ways of returning to direct talks, which broke down in late 2010.